A nonviolent, radical Left perspective on the news from another ordinary individual struggling to keep hope alive.

"Passion and substance are not mutually exclusive."

Saturday, March 02, 2013

More stuff you already know

However, there is, again, a point.

Marco McMillian, 34, was found dead on Wednesday near a Mississippi River levee. Police have charged 22-year-old Lawrence Reed with murder in the case. No motive has been established.

McMillian, who is both black and openly gay, was considered a viable candidate for mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi, a town of 20-something thousand in the northwest corner of the state, mostly known for some significance in the history of the blues.

Upon hearing the news, my first reaction was - as was the reaction of at least some others - "oh please don't let this be what it looks like." Let it be a robbery gone bad, let it be some kind of if you'll pardon the expression "ordinary" tragedy, let it be something else and not the vicious hate crime that immediately springs to mind.

As I write this, it's still unknown if that hope, that bizarre hope that hopes for a murder to have been driven by this sort of base motive rather than that sort of base motive, is to be borne out. But I have to say that in the course of this, a phrase kept turning over and over in my mind:

An openly gay black man was a viable candidate for mayor in Mississippi.

An openly gay black man was a viable candidate for mayor in Mississippi.

An openly gay black man was a viable candidate for mayor in Mississippi.

We know - oh, how we know - that we still have a long, long way to go :cough: Trayvon Martin :cough: but sometimes it's good to stop for a moment to realize how far we have come.

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"[He is] clearly one of those silly people who believes in 'civilization,' probably along with the Tooth Fairy and justice."

"He lives in a magical fantasy world."

"Powerfully spoken."

"A balanced and sensible view concerning the crazy ideas that often prevail regarding war and freedom."

"You do good work."

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"God bless you!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP."

About Lotus

Lotus has been at various times the newsletter of a local peace group, a column in a different group's newsletter, a stand-alone monthly, and now a blog. It maintains a loose "twice-weekly-plus" schedule: column-length pieces posted (at least) twice a week plus additional posts of varying lengths appearing at irregular but reasonably frequent intervals.

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My email is:whoviating at aol dot com

About Me

I'm an aging hippie, an educator, and a political activist, the terms'
order of presentation depending on circumstances and my mood of the
moment. I'm also a democratic socialist/green with an anarchist bent and
a civil liberties absolutist who has, by both logical conclusion and
moral compulsion, a commitment to active nonviolence. The only isms I
wholeheartedly endorse are skepticism and eclecticism.

Among the Missing

Beyond the reciprocal links, my blog list is pretty much limited to blogs I actually do look at on at least a fairly regular basis. These are blogs I looked at regularly but have not had a post for at least six months. If it reaches a year without posts, I assume it's been abandoned and remove it from the list.